Electrical connectors have been traditionally used to connect or disconnect electrical circuits or other electrical devices. Of these connectors, a large number of electrical contacts are secured in a housing so that a large number of electrical signals can be transmitted therethrough. A cable which carries electrical signals along electrical conductors thereof is connected to the connector with the conductors connected to the contacts.
FIG. 6 shows an example of one of these types of connectors which is disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 62-286438. Multiple electrical receptacle contacts 102 are secured in dielectric housing 101 of connector 100. Contacts 102 electrically engage connecting pins (not shown) which have been inserted through openings 101a in housing 101. Contacts 102 are welded to cable conductors 103a of cables 103 at the terminating sections 102a of contacts 102. In addition, cable conductors 103b of cables 103 are welded to ground plate 104.
In order to connect connector 100 to cables 103, terminating sections 102a of contacts 102 of connector 100 and the cable conductors, whose ends are exposed, were clamped together in a holder so that they overlapped and were welded with a welding machine while the holder was manually moved along a welding position.
When manual movement of the holder is used to carry out welding as described above, the following problems arise. Not only is the welding time-consuming, but the positioning of the connector and cable within the welding machine at which the welding operations take place becomes easily misaligned which makes for unsatisfactory welding.
It was with these problems in mind that the objective of the present invention resulted in a high-speed welding apparatus which (1) eliminates unsatisfactory welding by combining welding with high-speed automatic holder operation so that the precision of clamping the connector and the cable in the holder would be upgraded; (2) reduces the time required for each of the connectors to be welded to the cable and reduces the time between completion of the welding of one connector to the cable and the beginning of the welding of the next connector to its cable by making it possible to feed multiple holders at continuous consecutive welding positions; and (3) improves overall welding efficienty.